Eighteen
by Miss Lonelyhearts
Summary: They'd been treading so much water for this, every day of it thick as molasses, and Derek can't drag his eyes away from Stiles' chewed cuticles to see it actually happen.


It's twenty minutes to midnight when Derek lifts the window and eases inside. All of it makes him nervous still. _Still._ And maybe a lot of that is how Stiles had left the lamp on, how he'd fallen asleep inside the blue glow of the laptop. So Derek can't sneak in under the cover of darkness. Since this . . .since Stiles, there's never complete dark.

He retrieves the plastic container from just outside the window, wincing as it squeaks.

"Hey." Comes the sleep-soft voice behind him.

"Thought you'd be awake."

"I tried. Is it midnight? Am I a pumpkin again? Is that cake?" Stiles pushes himself out of the cocoon of sheets and rubs his eyes.

"Carrot." Derek pops the lid and shows Stiles the cupcake with its heavy cloud of frosting. Cake with a vegetable in it, a spot-on joke he'd known the instant he'd seen it. "Happy-"

"Whoa! Not yet. Come on, just give it a few minutes." They move a little domestically then, a slow ballet of shoving the comforter and toeing off boots. The laptop gets deposited on the floor, the clamshell between them on the bed. Stiles fiddles with the lid, bouncing it, head shaking as he smiles. "Two years of perfectly preserved hormonal urges and you were just going to blurt it out? Dude."

Derek can't sit back, or look at anything but the cupcake and the bare knee poking out beside it, so he just sort of leans into the sharp shoulder beside him. The bed is too small, no different than always. Now it matters, and it makes the pulse in his temple throb. He produces a lighter and a candle, a little soft and curved from its time in his pocket, and holds them with loose fingers. "I won't apologize for jumping the gun on this one."

Stiles swallows, and though they're ten minutes from an arbitrary starting point Derek would sell his car to make those minutes vanish. Because he's never been so scared, and wanted to feel that way for as long as possible. What's more, there are songs about seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, and none of them come close to how it feels to press his nose and lips to the side of Stiles' face. Chords and lyrics don't say how he smells. His heartbeat. Two years down to seven minutes, give or take.

"Go ahead and stick it in there." Then Stiles puts a hand to his mouth. He's hot, blood creeping like watercolor into his face. "The candle. The _candle_. Oh my god just let me do it. Jesus, feel free to stop making this harder _any_ time."

He's not even sure he feels it when the lighter and candle leave his palm, but Derek watches the tiny flame spurt to life at the end of Stiles' thumb like it's magic.

"Do you want to make a wish?" It's awfully cheeseball, but he sort of hopes that Stiles does. Making Derek feel like he's just stolen the wish itself.

"Nope." Stiles drops the lighter in the empty half of the clamshell, voice dark "I, uh, have this policy against being irrationally driven by hope. It's worked out pretty well for me."

"Has it?" Derek shouldn't move at all. Shouldn't make the business of pushing his hand into Stiles' palm such a slow and obvious thing. Long fingers squeeze his. They'd been treading so much water for this, every day of it thick as molasses, and Derek can't drag his eyes away from Stiles' chewed cuticles to see it actually happen.

"Oh sure, brilliant strategy. Okay, you blew it apart. Just jumped right in the middle of it. Why would you do that? Jerk." His voice cracks. And Derek's watching wax stream down the ridges on the little candle when he feels Stiles pull him in, feels the free hand threading behind his ear, and the press of lips against his forehead.

"Happy birthday," Derek says, because it _is_, finally. Even if it's not his, and even if he doesn't deserve it. He lifts his face, meeting those lips halfway. Older than they've ever been. When Stiles kisses him, he doesn't feel irrational. Derek breathes, goes in for more, and ends up clutching the front of Stiles' t-shirt, where there's a stuttering thrill of heartbeat against his knuckles. And a tongue, more than a little needy, tracing his lip. They're dumb teeth scraping, and wet sound turned inward, and they nearly knock the cupcake over by the time they're done.

"Best birthday ever, and hey lookit that, it's only just started. With kissing. And cake." Stiles exhales, forehead rolling against Derek's. "Do you want some?"

_Yes_ is a ball of fire rolling out of his chest. Derek smiles against the tip of Stiles' nose. "I could eat."

He watches as Stiles discards the candle that burnt itself out before he could blow on it. Watches the unfair length of those fingers as they pull the top half of the cupcake clean off the bottom half.

"What are you-"

"Just shut up, okay. Trust me, you will never eat a cupcake the traditional way ever again." Tongue jutting between his lips, Stiles takes the bottom half and smooshes it over the top of the icing, making a sandwich of the entire thing. And Derek is sure that he will never stop wanting this, newness from something familiar, and the way Stiles offers him half even as he's stuffing his whole portion into his mouth.

"That's incredible." He takes the cake sandwich and does the same, heart tripping over the awful joy of locking eyes with someone while eating. How it changes their faces. Derek swallows fast, lump of sugar joining sweeter things lodged in his throat, and snatches Stiles' hand. Stilling it inches from his face. "I mean it. Happy birthday. Someone should have one, and you definitely deserve it."

"Thanks," He says after his mouth is empty. "So this means no more window, and more _other_ stuff, right? Ten minutes ago you were a criminal, and now you're not. How does that feel?"

"I thought you didn't make wishes any more. That sounded suspiciously like hope, Stiles." Derek isn't moving as slow, sugar hitting his system alongside better pleasures, and he puts those long fingers against his lips, hearing the exact moment when Stiles stops breathing . . .while Derek sucks the minor bits of cake and icing off his index finger.

"Fuck." Stiles doesn't withdraw, and Derek's skin flushes violently, well past his belt.

It's far less polite than how they'd moved before, how the bed had barely jostled when Derek came through the window. Because now everything complains in a room-sized symphony of alarm. Stiles crawling over his sheets, Derek rising up onto his knees with the bed squawking and the plastic clamshell clattering. Even the lamp rattles with their kissing, just kissing, but doing it right and so hard against each other that the bed bangs the nightstand.

Eighteen and it doesn't matter. Eighteen and the floorboards groan. Eighteen and Derek feels like he's eighteen, too, for the first time.


End file.
